Praise You
by PatronSaintOfBEGA
Summary: Rated for language, mostly. Bakura wonders why he gets away with it, Ryou wonders what he tastes like. Review and I love you!


**Praise You (King of My Castle)**

_Must be a reason why I'm king of my castle_

Bakura woke up alone again, and took only a moment to ground himself before slamming his head backwards into the pillow with a curse. He stumbled out of bed not thirty seconds later, grabbing for the nearest available clothing; hauled over his shoulders a robe which had not previously belonged to him, and eyed the rest of the room. Nothing twitched under his habitually suspicious gaze. He moved to the other side of the bed, picking his way over articles of clothing and books, and ran his fingers across it. The rumpled sheets still held a fraction of warmth. He stood and shrugged the robe around a bit, noting that it felt comfortably like his old red coat; the tail of it swished behind his bare calves as he left the room, heading downstairs.

He found Ryou almost instantly, sat primly on the couch with a cup of something hot in his hands. He was watching the television, which wasn't switched on. Bakura hesitated, then reached down to take the cup away, meeting with no resistance. He placed it well out of the way, on a sideboard, before slumping onto the couch beside his lighter half; gold bangles clinked down one forearm as he rested his head in his hands. Ryou considered him for a short while, then shifted to lean against his right side, temple touching the thief's shoulder. Neither moved for several minutes.

Eventually, Bakura leaned back into the couch, shuffling around so that the smaller albino rested in the crook of his arm. His old body had taken getting used to again; it was larger, more muscle, less sinew. He'd been given it on the condition that he changed, and he'd actually _wanted_ to, tired of always hissing and spitting at the same targets who always showed him how it came to nothing. But with this body, things were complicated again. It needed food and rest - among other requirements - and though they still shared a link, he couldn't use this body to steal knowledge from his former host. Ryou was teaching him how to read. Ryou had cooked for him, excused him when the boy's father had shown up unexpectedly, once, and now sat in weak February sunlight with a split lip. His gangly, bruised, colt-legs hung over the edge of the couch, toes brushing Bakura's ankle. The thief raised one hand to carefully smooth the boy's hair, and felt the side of his chest nuzzled in response.

"Why d'you fucking let me get away with it?"

Ryou blinked at the voice growling softly across his ear, but didn't shift. He'd struggled when its owner had held him down on his own bed; he wasn't sure why.

"It's just something you do."

Bakura was aware, he _knew_ it wasn't right. He scoffed and pulled Ryou closer, if that was at all possible. It wasn't right, no, but it was something this body _needed_, maybe he wanted, and he knew Ryou anyway, apart from that. Ribs poked against his right palm, and he frowned at his own confusion. Hitting Ryou, behaving to the boy the way he sometimes did out of temper, that wasn't right either. But - that was what _his_ father had done, and more often too, and damn it if Ryou's father was ever around the place to - to -

"It's not right, fuckdamn it."

Ryou nodded, shifting so that both of his hands could play with the one not buried in his side. He ran his fingers lightly over knuckles that had slammed into his chest and head not twenty-four hours ago, and marvelled at how sickly pale he looked in comparison to the thief's deep ingrained tan. He rubbed his nose against Bakura's collarbone affectionately, letting the other shake his hands off, pull his chin up, begin to half-gently scrape blood away from his lip with a thumbnail. They were just things Bakura did, was all. Angry black-brown eyes stared down at him; the thief was wearing his father's old robe, coarse white hair shunted up on one side from sleep. His skin always felt hot, not chilly like Ryou's was from bad circulation. It tasted like salt, sort of. Ryou liked to remember those things, he had to remember, and then it didn't matter how hard, how harshly Bakura pushed and held him against the wall the next time, or knocked him backwards down the stairs, or yelled. He wondered what he tasted like.

"Like milk, y - hikari."

Bakura was still staring. He'd been watching Ryou's face, which never failed to disturb him. A sort of doll-face, all white and smooth, all tiny mouth and snub nose and placid animal-brown eyes. But it'd twisted, when he'd spoken. The eyes watched him back, fascinated, _entranced_, as if Ryou was so thrilled that someone had ever said that to him. Bakura had just felt the question protruding from his mind, and answered it out of habit, but the boy was looking at him as if he'd - he didn't know.

"Really?"

He shrugged.

"More like tea. Tea with too much milk in. Why?"

He frowned, perplexed, as Ryou smiled up at him with some kind of deranged joy, big eyes blinking and watery.

"Nothin'."

Bakura narrowly missed startling away as the boy suddenly clung to him, face burying in his neck to nuzzle him again. No, that was - just because his father was - nobody was ever around, and was that why he'd just looked so fucking _ecstatic_, latching onto Bakura for anything he could get. The thief tried to prise the smaller albino away, just to look at him, to see if he was still making that face, but he wouldn't move.

"It's not fucking _right_," Bakura protested, one hand shifting up to rub his lighter half's back as the boy began sobbing into his neck.

"I know," Ryou mumbled, coughing the words out, "It's just something I do."

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

**Hokay, cliched situation, sure. But feather-duster loves it anyway. Nyaaah!**

**Second thing - holy hell, yes, feather-duster writes things that _aren't_ Beyblade, occasionally. YGO, FMA, Gravitation, FAKE, Guilty Gear and more are all deserving of love and attention. **

**Hmm, what else? This was written listening to old dance music. The title is, umm, dunno. It just felt right!**

**Poor Bakura. Both of them. They have such a strange relationship. feather-duster doesn't really know what to say, cause this particular fic just sort of appeared of its own accord, very naturally. It's sorta self-explanatory.**

**Ooh, IMPORTANT NOTE! Bakura _is_ albino. Albinism does _not_ always mean red/pink eyes; look it up on or Wikipedia, people! How bad is it that feather-duster actually researched that? Hmm...heh heh.**

**If you're wondering what Thief Bakura was about to say, with the "(...), y - hikari." bit, he was about to call Ryou "yadonushi", but switched to "hikari" at the last second. If you're still lost, well, do some of your own research, people. feather-duster has Psychology coursework to do, among other things.**

**Not much else to say, except of course, review and I love you! I love you long time! **


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